


Meld

by tarokro



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Feelings, Fighting, M/M, Straight-Up Stupid-Ass Men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarokro/pseuds/tarokro
Summary: They fuse, they fight, they win.If only it was so simple./Broly and the three days after him.
Relationships: Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	Meld

They fuse.

The last emotion Goku can process as his own is delight as he screams, his mouth open wide as Piccolo surveys them carefully. The fusion begins the moment that they scream their _“ha”_ s, and the sheer abruptness of it still startles him, even with the experience of the failed fusions before it. There’s no lead up, no warning, no pause before it begins: he blinks and suddenly he’s drowning in it, submerged in the sudden pool of energy that erupts around them. It licks at his skin like fire, every nerve in his body alive and expectant. He would laugh if he wasn’t frozen, held in place by the invisible force of the fusion itself as every inch of his body burns with the will to move.

Suddenly he’s changing, not quite a person but not quite gone, energy glowing orange before him as it surrounds him. Goku isn’t aware of when _he_ stops being _him_ and starts becoming something else. He’s not sure if there’s a transition at all, if he thinks about it hard enough; he goes from being himself to something beyond physical in a single beat, his energy and his body becoming one and the same. He’s swirling, his new form painted orange-gold and entirely intangible, and the feeling of becoming half before becoming whole is overwhelming.

The sensation of Vegeta joining with him is a new form of overload. Goku can understand it— _feeling_ is his thing, something black-and-white and clear. There’s no confusing bad for good with sensation, no blurry line between right or wrong. Touch warms you when it’s good and stings when it’s bad and hurts when it’s awful: it’s clear-cut, and something he can’t mess up. It’s a different story, though, when _all_ he can do is feel. It’s awfully intimate, a frightening type of new, and something like fear takes over when he realizes that they’re becoming _one._

He isn’t conscious for the rest of it. He’s knocked out by the fusion, sent back into the recesses of the newly-formed mind of the being that calls themselves Gogeta. And yet even with the lack of consciousness, even without a body, even with the inability to perceive, he feels them: Vegeta’s memories, Vegeta’s feelings, Vegeta’s dreams.

* * *

They fuse.

Relief floods Vegeta with his final yell, his eyes trained on where his fingers meet Kakarot’s above him. He’s used to the initial moments, now, but the first beats are exhilarating, energy erupting in and around him in an unprecedented burst. They’ve done it. They have to have done it, with the sheer size of the energy that whips up around them—it’s _too much_ at once, bright and powerful and almost frightening. A moment’s glance at Piccolo is all the confirmation he needs: he’s focused, not expectant, and Vegeta knows that they’ve made it. He’s been through it twice, now, yet it still feels daunting, and it feels even worse now that they’ve succeeded. The energy around him _burns,_ kicking his senses into overdrive, and he’s briefly stunned by the dichotomy of it. He’s drowning in it and burned by it, submerged and scalded in an ocean of orange, and the more bitter part of him suddenly thinks _“isn’t that just poetic?”_

Orange shifts to blue around him, and suddenly Vegeta is transforming, his physical self split between partly _being_ and partly something else entirely. He doesn’t know when _he_ starts and everything else ends, but he knows he’s not himself. At some point in the process, one he can’t and couldn’t pin down, the physical Vegeta is gone. He’s scalded and drowned, a remnant of failed fusions before this, and something new takes his place. His energy and his body are the same, and for a moment it’s all he knows, it’s all he’s _ever_ known. It’s in that moment that he begins to rise, his new form painted blue and swirling, and the brief period where he’s an incomplete half of a whole is terrifying.

The feeling of joining with Kakarot is too many things at once. Vegeta is good with the physical. It’s hard to be obtuse with physical things—sensations have a purpose and intent, and they’re conveyed clearly, with little room for error. There’s no misinterpreting the hit of a punch as something friendly, or the strike of a kick as a greeting: they communicate nothing but _challenge,_ and he’s grateful for the fact. Yet in this moment, all he can do is feel, and all he can do is interpret, and it’s _scary._ It’s horrible and intimate and terrifying, awful and completing and _awful,_ and his feelings fight in the back of his head as he and Kakarot become one.

He isn’t conscious for the rest of it. The process knocks him out, and he’s tucked into the back of this new being’s consciousness, stored as one half of the whole that names himself Gogeta. And yet even dormant and unable to see, even unable to feel or hear or think, in the dark of Gogeta’s mind, Vegeta feels them: Goku’s memories, Goku’s feelings, Goku’s dreams.

* * *

They fight.

Gogeta is born with a purpose.

He is born in a swirl of blue and orange, the third of three fusions and the only success. He is born of two hard-headed men and their wills, fuelled by their desire to fight and protect. He is both their sum and their product, their powers added and multiplied several times over. He is temporary, needed for one enemy in one spot in time.

He wishes he could stay for more.

He would be interesting, he thinks, if anyone gave him the time to talk. The men who have created him feel like yin and yang in his head, even if they lay dormant and still. They’re a true duality, opposing and complimenting in equal measure. His abilities are a testament to that, Gogeta thinks: his power would not be so great if they were opposites alone, if there was nothing but conflict inherent in their dynamic. If they were merely opposite, merely positive to another’s negative, their sum would cancel out, a resultant of zero with no power or passion. Instead, they fit. Two laser-cut pieces of a two-piece puzzle, joined with no friction or gap, and their interdependence allows him to soar beyond any limit he encounters. They are positive in tandem and negative all the same; they are two pieces of a whole, at their strongest when together.

He names himself accordingly.

Gogeta’s first glimpse of Broly stirs something strange in his stomach, fuelled by each half of him in equal measure. As he settles into his stance, he watches him, takes in the opponent he was born to fight. He knows he’s gone berserk: he’s _angry,_ pupils so unfocused they’re near gone, and his fingers strain to move at the sight of him. Gogeta can _feel_ Broly’s power bleeding through, unrestrained and overwhelming, and he can’t help but smirk at the sight of him. He’s powerful, so, _so_ powerful, and Gogeta can’t wait to beat him, can’t wait to show him the power he’s been given. He’s sure that it’s those two driving that instinct, then: they want their revenge, and their bloodlust transfers through to him, itching for a fight. If Broly was in control, could he feel the ki within him? Can he feel it _now?_ Gogeta feels his own ki surging to meet his opponent’s, flowing off of him in waves in a subconscious challenge. _Come and get me,_ his ki says wordlessly. “Come on!” He yells, grinning.

There’s a joy in fighting that almost overwhelms him, their pleasure multiplied and rushing through his head, and in fighting Broly he finds that he understands. The feeling of being matched, of wanting to keep up, of wanting to challenge and beat and be beaten: Gogeta feels it there, with Broly’s fist in his stomach and his knuckles in his face. He feels it when his fists connect with Broly’s jaw, when his kicks land and send him flying. It feels like _belonging_ —he was made with this purpose, he was made for this fight, he was made for _this man,_ and nothing could feel better. He _belongs_ here, in this moment, fighting for the two who have made him, and he knows how they must feel. It’s electric, it’s frightening, it’s _addicting,_ and he wants more and more and more until he’s sick of it.

They must love how it feels.

It hits him all at once, moments after their battle, after he watches Broly leave. His Kamehameha dissipates into nothing, energy crackling in his palms as he watches Broly ascend. If Gogeta had blinked, he’d have missed it, but he manages to see them all: the glow of the dragon behind them, the blue of his own energy, and the red beam that moves Broly to somewhere unknown. It takes a moment to catch up with him, as his thoughts freeze he stays as he is—palms open, stance wide, ki pooling in his fingertips.

Gogeta has the consciousness to stop Frieza as he threatens the small ship that leaves, and he watches him with a smirk as he flies off in a trail of purple. But leaving Frieza feels conflicting, somehow, and something like pain blooms in the back of his head. The clashing feelings settle in his head as Frieza’s ship leaves, the opposition making his temples throb painfully.

It’s in that brief moment, hovering alone in the crater, thoughts come to him like a neverending volley:

  1. Broly is gone, and that is upsetting;
  2. Broly is _gone_ , and he wants to _find_ him;
  3. Broly is gone, and _they_ can find him;
  4. His time is up, and he wants to stay.



The pain brings him to his knees with their final thought, and it’s the most frightening of them all. It’s the worst of them because the thought isn’t his, nor is it one of them suddenly piping up in his consciousness. It’s the two of them at the same time, both with the same, dangerous thought echoing through their minds, screaming in the back of his head:

 ** _That’s_ ** _how he feels?!_

* * *

They win.

Separating isn’t awkward. There’s not enough time for it to be. As quickly as they separate, Vegeta is gone, soaring above the horizon and beyond in the blink of an eye. Goku watches him and leaps up, intending to follow, but his head _throbs,_ and it’s enough that funky colours start dancing in his eyes—

_“An acceptable performance for a Saiyan, I suppose.” A low chuckle as he steps closer,_ **_closer_ ** , _but Vegeta doesn’t look up. He wouldn’t dare to look up._

 _He’s kneeling. His blood is boiling under his skin, and he’s kneeling. His ki is like fire on his fingertips and he’s kneeling for that bastard, and he hates it, he_ **_hates_ ** _him—_

It takes Goku a moment to collect himself, his gaze shifting to the ground as the colourful blobs leave his sight. His vision clears with time, bubbles of colour dwindling into nothing, and he stares down at the earth beneath him. The three of them made this crater. Together. A group effort. Minutes ago, they’d been soaring, trading fist after fist and blast after blast, denting the Earth’s surface and leaving mark after mark in their wake. It hadn’t been _him,_ of course, that had fought Broly—that was Gogeta, the _two_ of them, merged and made into one whole. He’s just adjusting, he thinks, to the contrast between that and what’s followed: empty, boring ol’ silence.

“Goku! Hey, Goku!”

Goku turns around, his hand scratching idly at his neck. “Hiya, Bulma,” he says, something odd settling in his stomach. He watches as she leans against the raised rim of the crater, her lips curling into a grin. “Sure ended quick, huh?”

“I’ll say,” she replies, folding her arms on the jagged edge of the rim. She tugs down the hood of her snowsuit with an exaggerated sigh of relief that gets Goku grinning. “He didn’t even wait to take off. It’s so… _like him._ ” Bulma laughs as she speaks, and it manages to calm the strange feeling in his belly. “Are you going to go find him?”

The idea sets off something in him again, familiar and foreign in equal measure. His first instinct is _of course I will_ , because he _wants_ to. He wants to for some strange, inexplicable reason that even he can’t put into words. He doesn’t even have much of a reason to go after him. They’ve fought. Their opponent’s gone. He’s not keen for a spar—he’s _exhausted_. Well… he’s not, but he will be. It hasn’t quite caught up with him yet, but he knows lingering adrenaline when he feels it, and while he hadn’t physically fought Goku can feel it under his skin, can feel the exhaustion setting in his muscles. Even his drive to annoy Vegeta has dwindled, and his exhaustion wins out against that urge for the first time in a while. He ought to go home.

_There’s a unique satisfaction in beating Kakarot to the ground. He can hear the pop of his shoulder as he lands on it and_ **_presses_** _, and his blood surges with the will to fight at the yell that it wrenches from Kakarot’s throat. His position suits him—beneath him, beaten and struggling—_

He wants to go find him.

“I oughta get home,” Goku replies, because he knows he should. He should go home. He should rest.

He should talk to Chi-Chi.

Bulma’s brow raises, looking curious, but she tamps it down and smiles in seconds. “Need a lift?” She asks, pointing her thumb behind her. He’d forgotten all about the ship. The offer is tempting—Goku can feel the soreness settling in, even with his energy coming back. But there’s something strange in his throat, something brought on by a thought he can’t quite admit, and he feels awful for even thinking of it while looking at her.

“Nah,” Goku answers, rolling his shoulders, “I got energy to spare.” He smiles when Bulma rolls her eyes in response. He lifts off the ground without issue, swinging his arms and shaking his head as he prepares to leave.

“Saiyans,” she says, her exasperated voice full of affection in a way that makes his throat feel tight. “Tell Chi and Goten I said hi, will you?” Goku nods his response as he soars higher, flashing a toothy grin when she begins to wave him off. “See ya, Goku!” Bulma yells, her voice loud and clear.

“Well fought, Goku!”

The voice behind him startles him, and Goku yelps comically as he whips his hands forward. Whis avoids him easily, circling his right to face him head-on, and there’s something almost foreboding about the grin on his face that makes Goku feel awfully uncomfortable. “Way to scare a guy, Whis!” He says, feeling almost childish as he waves his hands defensively in front of him.

“You ought to talk to him, you know.”

The words startle him. Goku freezes in place, his expression frozen in that nervous, giddy laugh. “Haha,” he says in lieu of anything sensible. “Who?” He deflects, knowing it doesn’t make sense. There are very few people Whis could be talking about, and he’s sure he’s not asking about Broly. And if it’s not Broly then it’s _him_ , and Whis can’t be referring to it because then—

“Don’t be so _serious_ , Goku,” Whis admonishes, his smile slight but polite. “It doesn’t suit you.” Goku knows he’s out of it because he feels Whis’ staff against his temple before he sees it, and he can feel himself pouting at the slight sting of it against his forehead. “Run along now,” Whis says, his lips curving upward just a little bit more. “Go on home.” His smile stays as he descends below, and Goku watches as he and Bulma walk in step towards the ship behind them.

He stays there, hovering in the air, as he watches them enter the ship. There’s too much in his head for him to make sense of it, thoughts clashing as he watches the ship take flight. He thinks of the fight, the fusion, and Vegeta; of Broly, Frieza, and Vegeta; of Shenron, Broly’s friends, and Vegeta; of Whis, how Whis _knows,_ and Vegeta. Does anyone else know? For how long? Was he really so bad at hiding it?

_Go on home,_ Whis’ voice reminds him, quiet in his head.

Goku presses his fingers to his temple, exhales, and leaves.

* * *

They won.

The sharp _smack_ of something against Vegeta’s face is what wakes him. Awareness hits him all at once, crashing into all his senses with little warning. He can feel the wind around him, striking water and debris at his skin; he can see the waters beneath him, whipped into a roaring frenzy. He can hear the howl of the wind as it moves, an angry call born of the Earth itself; he can smell the salty tang of the water as it hits him, and as he licks his lips he can taste it, too. It’s only now, with wind and water licking at his skin, that his mind feels even somewhat clear, and the raging winds of the hurricane are breeze compared to the anger boiling in his chest.

He laughs. Even the weather is thematically fitting.

His ki burns hot at his fingertips. Vegeta lets one ball of energy brew in his palm, bright and burning, and hears himself grunt as he throws it down to the water. There’s a satisfaction in seeing it land against the ocean—the way that the energy splits and breaks the surface, the ripples that surge up as the ki expands underneath. He watches the energy glow under the water as it grows, grows, and grows, right up until it bursts, and something childishly primal surges in him when the ki blast explodes—

_They’re all mumbling to themselves as he focuses, energy twitching in his palms. “Ka… me…” He calls, feeling it crackling under his skin. “Ha… ma!” Energy forms like a ball in his hands, and it launches, destroying the vehicle before him. He stares there in his stance for a moment, dazed and twitching with excitement._ **_I did it,_ ** _Goku thinks, happiness swelling in his chest. “I did it!” Goku cries—_

He’s not sure when he begins, but Vegeta does it again. And again. And again. He’s launching them faster and faster, rapid-fire ki blasts breaking the tension of the water and forming a crater amongst the waves. He can feel the wind around him surging, whipping up the water that flies beyond the surface and weaponizing it. He can feel the high-speed lick of it against his skin, leaving welt after welt and cut after cut as water, grit and debris graze him. The cuts _burn,_ surface-level and stinging with salt. He’s sure he’s powered up—there’s energy crackling around him, turning him golden, and the realisation makes something manic bubble out of his throat.

He keeps at it—throwing and watching, throwing and watching—and he stares directly into the whirlpool he’s created. As he launches blast after blast, he thinks back to Broly, and to the ki that had formed in his palm as he watched him in Super Saiyan God. _“This is worthless,”_ he’d said, his ki flowing down to his fingers. Vegeta had heard Kakarot yell. He’d heard Kakarot tell him to stop. And he’d ignored him.

He remembers the way Broly had sunken down, deep into the ocean, and the guttural growl that he’d made in the moment he’d been struck. He remembers the primal roar that Broly had made, beneath the water, and the way the water had contorted around him, a sea split and made to spin by the force of his own, powerful will. Broly had floated at its centre, a godlike centrepiece in a whirlpool of power. Pure anger and power radiated from him, and Vegeta felt a strong wave of envy rushing in—

_He’s strong. It’s all Goku can think about watching them fight. He’s_ **_strong._ ** _Admiration surges in him at the way Broly yells, even in the milliseconds that the energy takes to pool at his open mouth. Green ki forms a sphere at his throat, and it launches_ **_at him_ ** _, and he can hear himself flailing childishly as he swerves to dodge it. As it grazes the mountaintop and explodes into energy behind him, another feeling surges in his chest—something old. Something he hasn’t felt in a long time. Saiyan-to-Saiyan, well matched, and bloodlust crawling in his throat. He wants to fight him. He_ **_really_ ** _wants to fight him. Something in his stomach is drawing him to Broly, pulling him in with no chance of resistance. It’s like with Vegeta—_

A boulder ramming into his shoulder is what breaks him from his stupor this time—not the impact, but the _pop_ of his shoulder as it shifts out of position, the sound reverberating in his ear for what seems like far too long. He’s unfocused, still acclimatizing to awareness, but conscious that his hands are still moving, still launching blast after blast into the whirlpool he’s created. The hurricane’s winds carry sand and rock, now, and a quick glance down tells Vegeta why: he’s blasted through down to the bottom, rock and sea-floor undergrowth flying into the air with the force of each blast. He can’t be far from the shore to have gotten so deep, but it startles him into stopping, his eyes trained on the water as the whirlpool slowly moves to fill the void.

_Fusion was a mistake,_ he thinks bitterly. It’s all he can think of as he watches the water swirl and swirl and swirl, its radius growing smaller and smaller as it closes in. He thinks back to the moments just before their fusion, right after their stupid dance, as they slowly joined to form one being. Blue and orange had turned and turned, whipped up into a frenzy, and merged. Vegeta watches the whirlpool as it shrinks, water filling up the crater he’d made, and tries to picture it again: blue and orange in equal measure, energy crackling and swirling and swirling.

He hates this. He knows it was necessary for the sake of their families, for the sake of Earth, but he hates it. Having Kakarot’s knowledge thrust upon him in the weird, stasis-like state they’d been relegated to in their fusion had been enough. Vegeta loathes the idea of carrying Kakarot’s thoughts in his head. He loathes the idea of Kakarot’s _memories_ in his mind. He loathes that his mind keeps _giving_ them to him, even as he shirks them aside, as though they’re helpful tidbits that he ought not to forget and not an invasion of what little privacy he ought to have _in his own mind._ Even as an abstract concept—as his dreams, his memories, his thoughts—Kakarot manages to be _fucking annoying,_ and it feels like some sort of universal karma, dangling in his face and taunting him. _You’ve not suffered enough yet. Allow me._

His thoughts cycle rapidly as the wind slows around him. Whatever he can see of Kakarot, Kakarot can see of him. Everything he has experienced, every thought he has had, is unwrapped and laid bare, all for the worst moron he knows to rifle through and pick out. It’s an invasion of the “self”, being able to see his own _mind,_ and even though he knows it’s no fault of Kakarot’s individually he wants to thrash him regardless.

He’d felt it just before they’d separated. The realisations that their fusion—that Gogeta—had had, the sudden rush of emotion that had rushed him. Vegeta had felt all of them individually, and _fully;_ the fusion had multiplied _everything_ tenfold, and that seemingly included _feeling,_ both physical and emotional. He’d felt it just before they split, when their consciousness was neither whole in Gogeta nor two halves of their own: what Kakarot felt, laid out plainly for him to see.

He knows.

_Kakarot_ knows.

It’s _mutual._

When Vegeta exhales, he stares down into the whirlpool, watching it narrow until it nearly closes. The air around him is still, welcoming him to the eye of the storm, and he sighs as he lifts himself higher into the air, resignation settling in his stomach. He knows what he ought to do. He focuses briefly, feeling out her ki to the west, and pinpoints her, trapped between two familiar ki at their home. He can already picture her face, smug and satisfied, the moment he tells her, and he can feel his brows furrowing at the thought. It won’t be the first time they speak about it. He doubts it will be the last.

As the whirlpool seals, Vegeta sighs, and goes to find Bulma.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave a comment if you enjoyed. They're always nice to read.  
> You can find me on [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/tarokro) I talk about writing and weeb shit.


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